Iranian Lawmaker Says Medicine Shortages Can Lead To Crisis
An Iranian member of parliament has warned about a looming crisis triggered by medicine shortage, saying that nearly 200 medications are not available.
An Iranian member of parliament has warned about a looming crisis triggered by medicine shortage, saying that nearly 200 medications are not available.
Mohammad-Ali Mohseni-Bandpey, a member of the parliament's health committee warned in an interview with ILNA news website on Saturday that if a solution is not found, the issue may turn into a social, political, economic, and health crisis.
He said the government's huge debts to the social security organization and the organization's debts to hospitals, as well as the lack of sufficient drug production in the country are the most important factors contributing to the crisis.
During the past years, the authorities attributed medicine shortages in the country to the US sanctions, claiming that the sanctions targeted ordinary people. However, import of humanitarian items, including medicine, is exempt from US embargoes. In fact, Iran has been purchasing around two billion dollars' worth of medicines and raw materials annually for producing drugs from Europe and India.
The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies had previously written in a report that corruption, not sanctions, is causing medicine shortages in Iran.
While European countries had launched the INSTEX mechanism with the permission of the US to export humanitarian items to Iran, they discontinued it in March of last year because of Iran's unwillingness to use this mechanism.
In a joint statement in March, Germany and France said the Iranian leadership has chosen to act against the interests of its people by refusing to cooperate in the export of medicine and other life-saving goods.
Bandpey further noted that in a meeting held last week, the ministers of labor, health, intelligence and the representatives of the Central Bank, as well as the Revolutionary Guard acknowledged that if a solution is not found, this issue may turn into a big problem.
He also referred to the 180-million-dollar debt of the social security organization to hospitals and the government's “ten times larger” debt to this organization, saying that there is a shortage of medicine even in the emergency rooms of hospitals and people have to look for medicines outside the hospital, meaning in the black market.
He underlined that the country cannot produce enough drugs, because the cost of the medicines is more than government mandated prices. Iran's economy is mostly controlled by the government, especially imports of goods, which needs foreign currencies.
Earlier this year, Bandpey said the pharmaceutical companies are moving to other countries as there are "serious hurdles” to their activities.
In January an official of Iran’s drug importers union, Mojtaba Bourbour, challenged government officials’ claims about self-sufficiency in production of medicines and said not only up to 90 percent of raw material is imported from countries such as China and India, but also some medicines are imported from China but sold under Iranian labels.
Ultraconservatives, who dominate the current parliament and the government, are ready to go out of their way to ensure their continued supremacy in the political landscape.
The Reformist Front, an umbrella organization of several parties and groups elected Azar Mansouri as the Front's leader last week to replace aging political heavyweight Behzad Nabavi who led the front during the past two years. Mansouri was the front's spokesperson during this period.
However, based on the experience of the last two elections in 2020 and 2021, an electoral watchdog controlled by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will determine who can become a candidate. In the 2020 parliamentary vote hundreds of reformist candidates were disqualified, allowing hardliners to dominate the parliament.
Ms. Mansouri took part in a meeting with former President Mohammad Khatami, who is considered the undeclared leader of Iran's reform movement although his recent stances indicate that he is not too eager to risk big changes in the current governing system.
According to Etemad Online, at the meeting Khatami endorsed Mansouri's qualifications as the leader of Iran's Reform Front and insisted on its independence. He said the power and capabilities of the Reform Front depends on its members' strengths and capabilities.
Khatami called on the front's leaders to do their best to ensure its cohesion, while also benefitting from the views of experts outside the front. He added that the front's views should reflect the collective opinion of its members.
At the meeting, Mansouri said that Khatami is the Reform Front's focal point and that all of the reformists agree on his key role.
Meanwhile, according to conservative website Nameh News, Mohammad Ali Namazi, a member of the Centrist Executives of Construction Party (EoC), which is a part of the Reform Front, has said that the Reform Front would have been more successful if its members elected EoC leader Hossein Marashi as its chairman.
However, he added that Mansouri's election as the Reform Front's leader does not mean that the views of her party, the Unity of Nation Party will determine the underlying policies of the front. Ms. Mansouri will have only one vote in determining those policies.
He said a majority of the front's member wanted Nabavi to be elected as the leader, but the aging politician was not interested in the position.
Meanwhile, Namazi made it clear that he is aware that the conservative-led Guardian Council that vets election candidates has already made its decisions about who are those who are allowed to run for the upcoming election.
At the same time changes in the leadership of the conservative camp indicated their strong interest in the upcoming election. In one of the latest developments, political heavyweight Mohammad Reza Bahonar joined SHANA [Persian acronym for the conservative alliance council of revolutionary forces]. Despite what the word "revolutionary" might indicate, the alliance consists of elderly politicians such as Bahonar and former Majles Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel who have been active in Iran's domestic politics for more than four decades.
However, Expediency Council member Bahonar's move to the forefront of electioneering could mean that traditional conservatives are serious in trying to keep their position in the Iranian political landscape despite the power of ultraconservatives, most notably the Paydari Party, to win the lion's share of the seats in the next parliament.
Nonetheless, as Namazi noted, getting through the Guardian Council's net is not guaranteed for anyone unless Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei pulls the right strings for them.
Hadi Talebian Moqaddam, a trade official, told a news website in Tehran that soon Iran will invite Pakistan to hold talks about bartering commodities and goods, with an eye “on creating free trade.” He mentioned textiles as an area where Pakistan can supply Iran, although importing rice also has a long history.
US sanctions imposed since 2018 have seriously limited Iran’s oil exports and its revenues, which are vital for supplying hard currency to a government that controls the economy and is responsible for providing food and medicine to the population.
Although the oil exports have substantially increased in the past two years, the revenues have not been sufficient for all the needs of a population reaching 85 million and an inefficient economy mired with corruption and international isolation.
The US Energy Information Administration recently estimated that Iran’s total oil exports in 2023 will reach $46 billion, but it admitted that this a rough calculation based on global energy prices, not on actual amounts Iran charges its customers.
In fact, Iran and Russia, two sanctioned countries, offer large discounts to their buyers. The amount of the discounts remains secret, but some have said that Iran might be selling its oil in clandestine ways to small Chinese refineries for as low as $40 per barrel.
What is clear is that Iran must use middlemen who mix its oil shipments with cargoes from other countries, transfer the oil to other tankers somewhere in south-Asian waters and deliver it to China as Omani, Malaysian or Iraqi oil.
In addition, it is not easy to repatriate the money in hard currency since Iran is cut off from the international banking system mainly due to US sanctions. That too costs money. All these cuts into Iran’s oil revenues, which are probably half of what the US estimate shows.
Iran’s confrontational foreign policy and its controversial nuclear program have left it far behind other regional countries like Saudi Arabia that have huge oil revenues and invest it back into infrastructure. Saudi oil revenues in 2023 are expected to reach $223 billion – at least five times that of Iran.
The picture becomes clearer if per-capita oil revenues are considered. Saudi per capita income from oil in 2023 is estimated at $6,450 and Iraq’s $2,356, while Iran’s per capita revenue is a meager $516.
In this situation, the clerical regime in Tehran boasting of its revolutionary credentials has to turn to barter trade with Pakistan, a country facing its own serious financial crisis.
Current US sanctions are not the only external reason for Iran’s economic crisis. The first serious economic sanctions began appearing 15 years ago when the international community discovered a secret Iranian nuclear program, and the UN Security Council began imposing sanctions. Since then, Iran’s average rate of economic growth has been zero, although international sanctions were lifted when the JCPOA nuclear deal with world powers was signed in 2015. After a two-year reprieve, the United States pulled out of that accord and imposed its own unilateral sanctions.
In a recent article, a relatively independent website in Iran argued that the nuclear program has cost the country 4 trillion dollars in the past 15 years, in lost growth, inflationary damage, and lack of domestic and international investments. The issue, the article argued is not just lost oil revenues but its cumulative impact on the economy, including loss of business confidence.
While Iran sits on the world’s second largest natural gas reserves, its tiny Persian Gulf neighbor Qatar exports $120 billion of LNG annually. Iran cannot match that because no Western company is willing to provide capital and technology to expand Iran’s gas fields or tap into new ones. Iran's annual losses are estimated to be much more than what Qatar is exporting.